Warranting theory,stereotypes, and intercultural communication: U.S. Americans’ perceptions of a target Chinese on Facebook

Extending prior literature on stereotypes about ethnic groups and warranting theory, this experimental study examined the effects of exposure to a target Chinese international student’s Facebook page with self-generated (stereotypically positive or negative) and/or other-generated wall posts (stereotypically positive or negative) on U.S. participants’ (N = 550, Mage = 21.38, SD = 3.82) perceptions of task attractiveness and behavioral tendencies (i.e., willingness to communicate/ cooperate) toward the target. Supporting warranting theory, results demonstrated that when other-generated posts were present and disconfirmed the Facebook page owner’s self-generated posts, other-generated posts mitigated the effects of self-generated posts in most cases. However, when other-generated and self-generated wall posts were consistent, other-generated posts produced an averaging effect. In addition, the type of dependent measure, and the dynamic interplay between stereotype content and the valence of self-generated posts also mitigated the warranting effect of other-generated posts.     

Social network sites and acculturation of international sojourners in the Netherlands: The mediating role of psychological alienation and online social support

Acculturation of short-term international sojourners, such as expats and international students, has received considerable attention from scholars in the past decades. Acculturation is commonly defined as the interplay between cultural maintenance, the sojourner’s desire to maintain their home culture identity, and host country participation, their desire to initiate contact with members of the host society. The present paper focuses on the role that Social Network Sites (SNS) play in the acculturation process of this group. Through a survey, we examined how 126 short-term sojourners in the Netherlands use SNS to interact with relations in both home and host country, and how this affects their cultural maintenance and host country participation. Furthermore, we examined psychological alienation and online social support as possible mediators. Our results show that on the one hand SNS contact with home country relations is positively related to online social support. On the other hand, it is also related to psychological alienation, which in turn is related to cultural maintenance. This shows that sojourners who keep in touch with friends and family at home also experience more loneliness and homesickness, and place more emphasis on their own cultural heritage. Finally, we found that SNS contact with host country relations predicts host country participation. Through online activities, sojourners are able to foster social interaction and strengthen friendships with locals.     

Socio-Economic Profile of Shopkeepers in Embedded Markets: Social and Cultural Perspectives From a Hundred Years of Bengali Literary Works

Retailing, in the context of developing economies, has been claimed to be a social practice. A review of fictional literature from the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal may enhance our understanding of the social and cultural history of independent retailing. The evidence from social sciences shows that most retail markets in the economically less developed countries function in similar ways. Such a similarity in social structures may be explained using the concept of embeddedness. This article identifies the history of socio-economic roles of rural unorganised retailers in the embedded markets of developing economies through the discourse analysis of Bengali fictional literature.